


the bullet, in its hunger

by foldingcranes



Category: Marvel 616
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Civil War (Marvel), Grief/Mourning, Hallucinations, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Post-Divorce, Role Reversal, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 07:07:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18889651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foldingcranes/pseuds/foldingcranes
Summary: Steve had stopped wearing his wedding band a long time ago.(Tony still wore his. This, Steve knew from staring too long at press pictures of Tony.From the time that Tony sought him out at the ruins of their first home and asked him to stop.)[Written for the 2019 Captain America/Iron Man Reverse Bang: Team INVINCIBLE.]





	the bullet, in its hunger

**Author's Note:**

  * For [isozyme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/isozyme/gifts).



> For isozyme's wonderful's art, that you can admire [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18884716)!

 

**

 

There were things Steve would never be able to forget: the soft sigh that abandoned his mother’s battered lungs and the last time she closed her eyes, loving and still and so, so very tired. The way Bucky clawed at him before falling to his death.

The war. All of it.

How bright the lights were, when he first woke up after years of being frozen, and the polished, colorful metal of the Iron Man armor.

The sound of the bullet that went through Tony’s throat. The sickening crunch of his ribs after Steve tore the armor’s chest plate and tried to revive him. How warm Tony’s blood felt, slipping through Steve’s fingers as he tried to stop the bleeding.

And then there were hands. On Steve. So many hands. It took an absurd number of people to pull him away from Tony. Tony’s battered body. Tony’s broken, battered body with a bullet lodged in his throat and the broken nose, the broken cheekbones, the broken bones that Steve gave him in anger only minutes before someone else decided that Tony’s life was theirs to take. Not Steve’s.

They put handcuffs on Steve. Two S.H.I.E.L.D agents took him by the arms, almost dragging him like a ragdoll. It was shock and not resistance that kept Steve from cooperating in his own arrest. It was the drum of Tony’s fading pulse stuck on the pads of his fingers, the red of Tony’s blood under Steve’s dirty fingernails.

It took a bullet. And before that? Before that, it was going to be Steve’s shield. His arm still hurt from holding the shield and swinging down on Tony over and over again, muscles still shaking from when he aimed straight for the throat. Steve hesitated long enough for an eager bullet to take his place.

And then.

And then, Steve’s hands were clean.

His hands were the only thing Steve could look at after he was thrown inside of a S.H.I.E.L.D cell. Knuckles red and swollen, already scabbing over. Slower than bullets but just as lethal. Stocky, bare fingers.

Steve had stopped wearing his wedding band a long time ago.

(Tony still wore his. This, Steve knew from staring too long at press pictures of Tony.

From the time that Tony sought him out at the ruins of their first home and asked him to stop.)

 

**

 

Steve spent a long night staring at the cell’s ceiling and sleeping on the cold, hard floor. That is how Maria Hill found him in the morning: on his back, on the floor, eyes bloodshot, hands on his chest.

“There’s a bed, you know,” Hill said, voice flat.

Steve shrugged.

“Alright then,” she sighed, standing straighter before opening the cell. “Get up, Rogers. We need to talk.”

Slowly, Steve stood up, taking a moment to shake off the feeling of pins and needles in his limbs, then cracking his neck. His head throbbed with a surprising amount of pain, and he stayed quiet as two S.H.I.E.L.D agents escorted him to the interrogation room and chained him to a chair and a table.

“Here’s the thing,” Hill began, taking a seat in front of Steve. “Forensics delivered Stark’s report this morning. He was shot. Died instantly.”

She put a file on the table, then opened it. There was a picture of Tony’s face. His eyes were closed, and his face bruised, a hole in the middle of his neck.

He looked asleep. Peaceful, even. The few wrinkles he had were smoothed over and the lines he got from feeling constantly worried were gone. Erased.

“Witnesses report that you weren’t carrying a gun,” Hill’s voice sounded distant as if she were talking from inside a fish tank. “Footage also indicates that you were about to beat the shit out of Stark but didn’t, at any point, plan to shoot him.”

“What are you getting at,” Steve’s voice, when he finally spoke, was rough with disuse.

“The point is that you didn’t do it and we can’t hold you here anymore. But,” Hill paused. “You still went against the government. And you’re still unregistered. We can’t let you go.”

“I see,” Steve said, not seeing at all. Because, if he was being honest with himself, he didn’t give a single fuck anymore. Let Hill get promoted for the arrest she had wanted to make for so long. Let the SHRA continue on its merry way. Let S.H.I.E.L.D scramble to oversee the mess left behind by Steve and Tony and all the fools that chose to fight each other.

Steve couldn’t bring himself to care anymore.

And, of course, that’s when the alarm blared, everything went dark, and the wall to their right exploded into pieces.

 

**

 

Luke and Peter got him out. It took six hours for them and the rest of their group to come up with a plan to get Steve out. Luke crumpled Steve’s handcuffs and chains in his hands like they were made out of paper.

Steve could have done that himself. He chose not to.

(He still couldn’t stop staring at the dried blood under his fingernails.)

At some point, Luke hissed at him to just  _ move _ . Steve went on as if on autopilot. As if he had given complete control of his body and surrendered it to other people and trusted them to not fuck him over. Him, a marionette with his strings cut, unable to move on his own.

They took him back to the safe house they had been using for the last couple of weeks. People hugged him. Someone cried on his shoulder, getting his uniform wet. Someone asked him if he was okay.

Sam, probably.

“Not now,” Steve said. He left the common room, walked straight down the left corridor, until he reached the last room there and opened the door, allowing himself to fall on the bed he had been sleeping in before. The mattress was hard and lumpy. The sheets smelled like dust. The bed was too small for Steve’s massive frame and--

And too lonely.

Because—

Tony died, yesterday. And before that, Steve had been giving him the beating of a lifetime. And before that, Tony had pleaded for Steve to make it stop. And before that, they had been fighting and disagreeing and banding together a bunch of people against each other. And before that, Steve had filed for a divorce. And before that, Tony, about to die, without even asking for Steve’s help, Tony had injected himself with the damned virus that made him less Tony and more a complete and utter stranger.

And before that, Steve had loved him.

It all came back to that.

Steve was truly fucked.

 

**

 

“Steve,” Steve buried his face in the pillow, only to smile when Tony’s fingers carded through his hair. “Steve, you left the window open again.”

“Did not,” Steve mumbled.

“You did,” Tony snorted, pressing a kiss against Steve’s temple. “You hate the cold; you should remember to close the window before going to bed. Honestly, Steve.”

“Tony,” Steve said, refused to open his eyes. Tony’s lips felt warm against his face. “Be good and do it yourself.”

“I can’t, sweetheart,” Tony sobbed. Tony cried a lot, these days. He tried to hide it from Steve, but it was hard to hide it: Steve knew it by seeing the bruised look in Tony’s eyes, the fragility in Tony’s usually smooth and calm voice. “I can’t breathe.”

Steve opened his eyes. There, under his body, Tony stared up at him with sad, blackened eyes. His jaw was swollen, and his cheekbone looked angry red.

There was a hole in the middle of his neck, blood pouring out of it. Steve’s hand rested on top of it. Heart beating wildly, Steve pressed down on it harder.

“Tony. Tony, no. Tony—” Steve babbled, hoarse and frantic, stopping only when Tony reached for him, his fingers grazing Steve’s face.

“Can’t… can’t breathe…” Tony gasped. “Steve!”

“Steve!”

Steve woke up.

His shirt clung to his body, sticky with sweat. Sam stood next to his bed, clutching Steve’s shoulder. He had been shaking him.

“Sam,” Steve croaked, slowly sitting up. “Just a nightmare.”

“Looked like a bad one.”

“It was a bad one.”

Sam frowned, letting his hand slip away from Steve’s shoulder. “You okay?”

“Do I look okay to you?”

“Fair point,” Sam conceded. “We’re worried about you, Steve, it’s been—days.”

“Sam, I can’t just—Jesus, Tony only died yesterday,” Steve argued, then immediately shut up as soon as he saw the concerned look on Sam’s face.

“Steve,” Sam spoke carefully. “It’s been… it’s been a week. You missed the funeral.”

“No, that’s… that’s not right... I couldn’t have,” Dread started to pool at the bottom of Steve’s stomach, making him feel physically ill. He was almost dizzy with the realization that he had lost hours, days. “The funeral.”

“I’m sorry, Steve,” Sam said, sounding painfully sincere. He hadn’t been Tony’s biggest fan, but Steve believed him. He was a good friend. “Rest now—eat something, will you? Jessica made a giant pot of chili today; I’ll bring you a bowl. You need to recover your strength.”

Steve nodded slowly, quietly. It only seemed to worry Sam more.

“Steve, I know that… I know that you loved him. I get it, he was your ex-husband, you guys had a history together. And I don’t want to pressure you or disrespect your grief, but… the guys downstairs? All the people we have been working with to fight against the SHRA? They’re waiting for you, Steve. They’ll want you to rally the tropes. Security has been tight on the streets, even going on food raids has become ten times riskier than before…” Sam sighed, dragging a hand down his face. “We’re going to need you.  _ We need you _ , Steve.”

There were a lot of things Steve could have said in response to that. He could have told Sam to go fuck himself, which wouldn’t have been very nice of him. He could have thrown a tantrum. He could have just grabbed his shield and tossed it at Sam, ordered him to make good use of it.

Instead, Steve just nodded again, eyes falling shut with exhaustion. He crawled under the covers again, not bothering to see if Sam was still sitting there.

“I know, Sam.”

 

**

 

Steve drifted.

He was no stranger to grief. He knew the inner workings of loss and regret. He didn’t see himself as someone who was trapped in a state of grieving.

Steve saw himself as caught in limbo.

He felt the way Tony’s body turned off after the bullet pierced his neck, the hitching sounds Tony made when he was trying to regain his breath, how he choked on his own blood.

And still.

Still, Steve kept waiting for someone to barge through his door and tell him that Tony was alive. That he was there at the safehouse, wounded and barely standing up, crawling up to the door and asking for Steve. It wasn’t such a wild dream, after all, people in their line of work died and came back all the time.

The days passed. Tony didn’t come back. There was no magic fix. Steve was torn between hope and a bitter sense of resignation that threatened to eat him alive and swallow him whole. He couldn’t leave his fucking bed. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t talk to other people or even take a shower.

The red under Steve’s fingernails was gone, but Steve kept thinking about it. He kept torturing himself, he kept replaying the same horror movie over and over inside his own head, directed and produced by himself. Dedicated to himself.

_ (You thought back to that day, that street and the hardness of Tony’s armor under your thighs, to the smell of smoke and blood and sweat, the feeling of Tony’s right cheekbone crumbling under the impact of your fist, the sickening crunch of it. _

_ And you had. Two seconds. Just two seconds of time and space, two seconds of someone pressing the pause button so you could remember warm, sunny mornings and how soft and delicate that exact same cheekbone felt under the press of your mouth, coffee and sugar on your lips, a smile on Tony’s face.) _

Before Tony died, before Steve had to be pried from his dead body, before Tony fought him and went mad with power and stood behind everything Steve despised, before that— _ before that _ , there were the good things. Happy things. Things that Steve had not dared to think about while Tony was betraying every single individual in the superhuman community. Things that Steve had suppressed so he could do his job and lead his people.

The thing about losing people was that everything comes back, eventually. Everything. Especially the good things. Your wedding day. The silly dates. The warmth of another body curled up next to you. The movies you watched together. The private jokes.

Steve woke up some mornings feeling like he was barely surviving. Those were the good mornings.

The bad mornings were the ones where Steve woke up choking on his own tears because he remembered that he was never going to see Tony drink coffee from his favorite mug again.

The small things hit the hardest.

 

**

 

Outside of Steve’s room, outside of Steve’s head, the world went down in flames. Without Tony to smooth things over and to stand between the SHRA and the superhuman community, someone far more removed from their reality and less patient to their plight took his place. Brawls took place in the streets and superheroes and other unregistered individuals were hunted down as if they were stray dogs hunted by animal control.

Steve waited.

Steve waited and waited for Tony to come back and fix the mess.  _ His  _ mess. It was easier to put all the blame on Tony. To curse his name in rage when the sentinels finally roamed down the streets and started filling prison cells with the people Tony used to call friends.

Steve was foolish enough to tell that to Carol.

“You didn’t understand anything, did you?” Carol scoffed, arms crossed and exasperation all over her face. She landed softly on the roof, a place Steve sometimes used to escape the concerned fussing of Sam and the rest of their friends. “God, Steve, if you only had listened.”

“Listened to what? More lies? Excuses?” Steve spat, sitting next to her, leaning his back against a wall. They were far away enough from the city to maybe, see a few stars.

“To what was coming for us,” Carol said, quietly. “This is what Tony was trying to prevent. Obviously, he failed.”

“This mess belongs to Tony, Carol,” Steve narrowed his eyes at her, feeling deeply annoyed. Carol was a beloved friend but, in that moment, Steve only saw her as the person who always took Tony’s side, and he resented her.

“Don’t be stupid,” Carol said. “This? All of this could have been prevented. We could have worked together.” She sat next to him, close but not enough to touch him. There was a distance surrounding her that Steve had never felt before. “Did you kill him?” She asked.

“No.”

“Were you going to?”

“Yes.”

Steve turned to face her. The language of her body screamed disappointment, and Steve had to look away. Suddenly, the fact that Carol was disappointed in him made Steve wonder about all the days he had spent cooped up in a room that didn’t belong to him, inside of a house that wasn’t his home, surrounded by people who Steve couldn’t guide anymore and he couldn’t bear the idea of continuing like that.

“I want to find them.”

“Who?” Carol asked, surprised to hear him speak.

“I want to find Tony’s murderer,” Steve paused. “It’s what you’ve been doing, right?”

“Not officially,” Carol winced. “I’ve got my hands too full to go all revenge mission.”

“Carol, I can—“

“Look, Steve,” she cut him off, getting back to her feet, ready to fly off again. “I’m still mad at you. I’m—I’m just so disappointed and exhausted and I hate everything that happened… I can’t exactly help you, but if you find out anything important, call me and. We’ll see what happens.”

“Thank you, Carol.”

Carol took a moment to watch him before turning her back on him. “I’m not doing this for you.”

In a blink, she was gone.

 

**

 

Luke was a good leader. The tension at the safe house escalated until it became clear that Steve wasn’t coming back. Not from this. The moment the collective realization dawned on them, Steve lost most of their respect. He was okay with that.

He took off during the night and walked down silent streets, avoiding the gaze of sentinels, hiding as best as he could. He didn’t even know where to start. There weren’t any clues.

Who had needed to kill Tony? Someone against the SHRA, most likely. One of Steve’s own? Another, different agent? Someone from S.H.I.E.L.D? Someone who knew that Tony stood between them and the current wreckage they had been living in since his death?

The days fused together in a timelessness that Steve had grown used to since the day he lost Tony. Steve didn’t sleep in his search for answers, and when he did, he dreamed.

He’d close his eyes and the touch of Tony’s fingers on his face would ghost his body. And Steve would try, with all his heart, not to long for the days before Extremis. To try and forget about the two years they spent married, and the happy life they led back when they lived in the tower, when they decided to give the Avengers another shot. When they built a family again.

The small things hit the hardest, people said, and Steve wouldn’t be able to think about a sesame bagel or a cup of coffee without wanting to cry and waiting for Tony to walk through the door with breakfast and a smile.

For the longest time, there was only anger. Anger was easier. Anger was familiar.

Anger was like a coat. Like a suit of armor, a protective measure. Easy to remember, easy to use.

But love? Love was fucking unbearable in the face of loss. And Steve crumpled under the weight of it, wishing he hadn’t even remembered in the first place.

 

**

 

Someone was knocking on his door.

Aimless and without a clue to latch on, Steve had made his way back to his old bachelor apartment, buried himself under his musty sheets and continued to allow himself the oblivion that comes from not needing to sleep so much but doing it anyway.

(Tony used to have days like that.

Sometimes, morning would come, and Tony wouldn’t be able to leave the bed. Steve would bundle him up in his sheets and leave a cup of coffee on Tony’s bedside table. He’d go on with his day and go back to their room once in a while to check up on him. And when Steve got the chance, he would take a break from his day and lay next to Tony, his arms wrapped around him, Steve’s chest plastered against Tony’s bony back, his nose tucked against Tony’s soft hair.

And Tony would lace their fingers together and say  _ thank you _ .)

Steve opened the door. He didn’t remember leaving the bed, or allowing Sam and Sharon in. There was the gentle press of Sharon’s fingers on his shoulder, guiding him towards the couch. The worry etched on Sam’s brow. Someone made coffee and gave Steve a cup. It was Tony’s favorite roast.

“Steve,” Sharon said. “We need to talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Steve replied. He wasn’t even angry. He was just… tired. Not in the mood for an intervention.

Sam exchanged a look with Sharon. They seemed to communicate in silence.

“It’s about Tony,” Sam said.

“What about Tony,” Steve said, voice flat. “Tony’s gone.”

Sharon hesitated, then rested her hand on Steve’s arm. “He’s not dead.”

Steve clenched his fists, heart beating wildly against the cage of his bones. “How do you know?”

Sharon seemed to brace herself. Her grip on Steve’s arm grew stronger. She looked pale and haggard; her shoulders hunched. Everything about her seemed to project a certain vulnerability that she had never possessed before.

“I was the one who shot him,” she breathed, finally looking at Steve in the eye. “Steve, that bullet was for you.”

 

**

 

(Steve came home, once, to Tony bouncing baby Dani on his knee. There was apple pudding staining his cheek and a mischievous glint in his eyes. Dani was laughing and pawing at his beard happily.

“This is what I get for spending ten hours locked in the workshop,” Tony joked. “Babysitting duty.”

“I don’t see you complaining,” Steve snorted, bending down to press a kiss against Tony’s cheek, right above the apple pudding stain. Tony’s eyes crinkled with laughter.

“I’m not!” Tony laughed. “I’m just saying, she isn’t fixing me any sandwiches right now. After all my hard work!”

Steve rolled his eyes at him. “Stay there, I’m going to feed you.”

“Oh,” Tony smiled, securing Dani in his arms before following Steve to the kitchen. “What a gentleman.”

Steve stopped in the middle of opening the fridge to look at them. In a few hours, the kitchen would be filled with exhausted people and arguments about food and work and the comforting sounds that Steve came to associate with home. The home he had because of Tony.

Tony, who carried baby Danielle in his arms and talked to her as if she were any other adult and looked at kids and dining tables filled with family and only had joy in his eyes.

_ This time _ , Steve thought.  _ This time it’ll last _ .  _ This time it’s permanent _ .)

 

**

 

_ Do you want him back? _

That’s what Sharon asked him, after she told Steve about Faustus. After she told him about how he had used her, poisoned her mind and brainwashed her, turning her into a puppet. About the hell she just survived and the consequences she faced after failing her mission, all while Steve moped in his bed and wandered in search of answers that he didn’t really try hard enough to find.

Did Steve want Tony back?

In the living room, Sharon and Sam made plans. Waited for Bucky to come with the intel he had been gathering for the last few months. God, Steve hadn’t seen Bucky in months. He hadn’t even thought about him. He hadn’t thought about anything else but Tony since the entire war started.

_ Do you want him back? _

They asked him, as if the entire matter rested on Steve’s shoulders. Steve’s choice. As if they meant to forget about Tony if Steve told them to drop it. Tony, who was never meant to be killed, but had been at the wrong place, at the wrong time. Too close to Steve.

Steve should have died that day. Or later, maybe, if Sharon’s programming hadn’t failed, maybe he would have been killed later. Maybe he could have joined Tony, wherever he was now thanks to Skull.

Maybe, things would have been better for everyone if Steve and Tony had just disappeared. Steve thought about it a lot. Since Tony died, he liked to lie down on his bed and think about all the ways things could have gone differently for them.

He could have listened. He could have shaken Tony’s hand instead of using that EMP and escalating the anger simmering between them. He could have tried to understand Extremis.

There were many things Steve could have done differently.

(He often closed his eyes, before falling asleep, and willed himself to mentally go back to the towers. And in this dream, in this different reality, Steve never served Tony divorce papers. In this reality, Steve pleaded _please talk to me_. And, in this reality, Tony trusted him enough to talk to him.

In this reality, Steve said  _ I love you _ and  _ You don’t have to do this alone _ and  _ Here’s what we’re going to do _ .

And this Tony smiled a trembling smile and reached for Steve’s hand on the table. This Tony took Steve back to their bed and held onto him really tight, like he wanted to pour himself into Steve. This Tony said  _ I need you _ and  _ thank you _ and  _ please help me _ .)

 

**

 

As more people in their community continued to disappear, as evil took advantage of the chaos and the sentinel terrorized the streets, as the government and S.H.I.E.L.D tried to control the hubris left by the war and Bucky arrived at Steve’s shabby apartment, Steve made his choice.

“I want him back.”

“Are you… sure about that?” Bucky said, squinty eyes pointed at him. He looked as exhausted as Sharon and Sam did when they arrived the previous day. “Look, a lot of what’s happening out there is because of Stark.”

“And he can fix it,” Steve crossed his arms, aware of how stubborn he sounded. “And we can’t just… leave him there. Whenever he is. We can’t let the Skull get away with this.”

“Well, technically, he isn’t getting away with anything since his original plan was, you know,  _ to murder you _ ,” Bucky glared at him. “Can’t fucking believe you want to do this.”

“Bucky,” Steve ran a hand down his face, his patience running out. “Please, just… do this for me.”

“Fine,” Bucky said, sounding defeated. “But. For the record? I think you’re being an idiot.”

Steve didn’t need to be told that twice.

 

**

 

Sharon had the gun she used to shoot Tony. They waited another night, until Natasha got there, silent as a shadow and cradled it in her expert hands on Steve’s kitchen table.

“This is not a normal weapon,” Natasha said, calmly putting it in a case. Then she nodded at Bucky, a silent gesture that seemed to communicate entire phrases.

(Steve and Tony used to be like that, before. Communicating with their eyes and gestures and the way their bodies moved around each other.)

They were gone for two days, then sent a message to Steve informing him of a meeting concerning Reed Richards. Steve closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

He waited.

 

**

 

Steve stepped into Reed Richards’s lab without knowing what to expect. He went there alone, days after the message that Bucky and Natasha sent him, feeling like this particular visit would break him or make him.

This could be the day Steve regained his hope or lost it completely.

He wasn’t ready.

But anything was better than the months of idleness, of absolute nothingness, of longing and numbness that dragged him down, drowning Steve in black tar, head barely above the surface.

He needed it to be over.

“Steve,” Reed opened the door to the lab for him and allowed him in. “Welcome, I…”

“Is he…?”

“The gun used to shoot him was loaded with time displacement bullets. I suppose Red Skull planned to send you to a different timeline, you see, we’ve been working on—” Reed cleared his throat, probably noticing Steve’s impatience. “He’s alive.”

Oh.

_ Oh _ .

The constant anger that seemed to throb at the back of Steve’s head suddenly resurfaced, even if for a brief moment. Steve’s legs trembled, knees almost buckling under his own weight. “He’s what?”

“Alive,” Reed repeated. “Follow me, please.”

He led Steve to a smaller room next to the main lab and punched a code on the panel. The door opened and Reed awkwardly reached for Steve as if to pat his back but decided to just leave instead. Steve barely registered that moment.

Tony was sitting on a bed, still bruised. The hole from the bullet had turned into an ugly scar in the center of his neck. His hair was disheveled and his beard unkempt. His eyes were shadowed and sad.

“Steve?” Tony said, looking up at him. And Steve—Steve just crumpled, right there on the spot. His legs refused to move; his body gave up on him. All the pain from the last few months hit him with the full force of a speeding train. He was on his knees, like a prayer, head hung low, a sob etched in his throat, choking him and robbing him of words.

Tony’s hands were on him soon enough, touching him with a gentleness that Steve didn’t deserve.

“Steve,” Tony pleaded. “Steve, please talk to me.”

And Steve, devoid of any words but with so many things at the tip of his tongue, barely raised his head to look at him. Tony cradled his cheeks carefully, running his thumb on top of Steve’s cheekbone, trying to wipe away his tears. Steve didn’t even know when he had started to cry.

“You’re alive,” he croaked, furiously blinking his tears away. Tony smiled at him. Steve knew nearly every flavor of Tony's sad smiles, how they didn't reach his eyes, how Tony hid behind them. It was one of the saddest ones.

“Yeah, sorry about that. Still kicking,” Tony joked. “I'm... really sorry, Cap.”

“Don’t,” Steve grunted, grabbing Tony’s wrists, feeling his pulse, feeling how warm Tony was, pulling him closer. “Don’t say that. Tony. Tony, this was… You were…. I was in hell. You were gone and I was in hell. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it without you.”

“Oh, Steve,” Tony clung to him then, the way Steve had memorized: he liked the way Tony touched him, how he draped himself all over Steve and pressed himself against his body. “Everything got so fucked up. I don’t expect you to forgive me.”

“I don’t know if I can, honestly,” Steve said, resting his cheek on top of Tony’s hair.

“That’s okay,” Tony mumbled. His lips were smushed against Steve’s shoulder. He was shaking. With his arms wrapped about him, Steve could feel how bony he had become. “I’m going to fix this.”

“No,” Steve said firmly. He pulled back and kissed Tony’s forehead. “We are. We’re going to fix this. And you’re not dying. Ever again.”

Tony smiled. His face still sported the bruises that Steve gave him. He had hurt Steve and Steve had hurt him.

But Tony had been gone and now he wasn’t and, right now, that was all Steve ever needed.  
  


 

**Author's Note:**

> You can yell at me [here](https://twitter.com/foldingcranes).


End file.
